VEDIC VOWS - BOOK 1 THE MOHINI

Chapter - 1 REMINESCENCE

  I think the correct place to start would be, as to how I became a mohini. It is always better to see and hear, than only hear. So come my friend let me show you, but beware; my rendition does not always reach everyone, so if you are experiencing this in anyway means you are special and not in the sense you would like. I really wonder if you are out there somewhere and I long fervently that someone is out there listening… seeing… the things that I show, for you would be salvation, mine and surely not yours.

   Do not worry, I wouldn’t wish my existence on my worst enemy, but I am practical enough to accept if you were chosen by fate; any wish of mine made during the sentient mass phase is null, but if were fully coalesced then it’s a different matter, for I get to have Three Hundred wishes during each forming, but nothing comes for free and I am accountable to lord yama god of death and justice and benevolent as a great white shark of an assistant chittragupta, the accountant; for I might change fate during the wish shower. So, I rarely use them especially when wishes are fickle and one has to be very specific and even then they tend to circumvent what you really want or find their way around it; and none for personal gratification. But boons, now are a different matter; I remember the time when,

“I am so sorry” this is what happens when you get to speak about yourself after a long time especially when no one is about. Sorry!

 I am forgetting something very important, it is in the edge of my mind but I cannot remember what it was about; someday I would remember. Someday… never mind, so now let’s go tale of my being.   

 Ashwina  23rd, Ujjain, Bharatha(India), 102 BCE.

         I hated this dress. It weighed about a ton; and I was sweating profusely under all this finery. My ears were weighed down with earrings so big that I feared it would tear my ears; I was bent down wearing gold ornaments from head to toe, literally. Moreover the cloth was making me itch like a dog with fleas. It was plain torture. The two girls assigned for fanning the royals with fan made of peacock feathers were slowly shaking them, that I wondered for what stupid purpose they were stationed there. If there was any difference because of their fans in the nearby area I would gladly undergo suttee*. The tropical summer was already doing just that. I longed for an A.C; a ceiling fan would have been just fine too. But, that was a different time; I pushed my discomforts aside and tried to think of process I had set in motion as, how to extricate myself from this mess and I had better hope it works, and works fast, for I was to be bound for life as the wife of king Vikramadithya of Ujjain, a king known for his wisdom and justice and mainly having a ‘vethaal’ at his side; but a masochist to my eyes nonetheless as women did not do many things during his time and more over I had yet to see the vethaal** in the short acquaintance. That was my first impression on him and found him severely lacking in comparison to the legend. And though reasonably handsome he didn’t stir any feathers of mine. I simply could not see way beyond his conceit which made him very ugly in my eyes.

        It was only later I came to know that “vikrama (valourous) Adithya (bright as the sun)” was the ceremonial name bestowed on him by himself; the real name of the king was “chandrasena” and knowing my myths, legends and history quite well I knew who he was; it was this knowledge, and plain dumb luck that led me to concoct a plan to escape this madness.

      So I was to be a Queen, not any queen at that, Thirty Sixth Queen to be precise; that is without counting the concubines. As he already has the chief Queen, whose offspring would be next in line for the throne, the other ‘Queens’ were simply deflowered and left in the harem. The kings with their busy schedule rarely visited them; it would be a great miracle if he visits each of them four times in their whole life. They cannot leave the place and no men were allowed inside except the king and the members of the royal family. The only males were the guards at the entrance. It is very difficult to escape once inside. More if the king’s visit results in pregnancy, it would be disaster, the sons of minor queens became soldiers of some title while the sons of the concubines became slaves, the daughters, “god forbid “were entirely another matter, the daughters of the chief queen and favorites were betrothed and married the day they were born to other princes, while the daughters of the concubines simply became part of the harem, to be used by the royal family. I for one did not have plans to stay that long.

   To be a queen one had to be born a royal or become a concubine if the king fancied you. I fitted neither bill, to describe myself; I would say I am okay. I was brown, broadly built and quite plump and little over the average height to get away with it; my only redeeming asset, my thick raven black hair reaching my knees; but then in this time all the women seem to have such long hair and wasn’t a novelty. My marriage with the king was a special circumstance. After all was said and done, I and the king had one thing in common “Goddess Kali”. She was the bridge which spanned the time of my 21st century to his 102BCE. He was a great devotee and so was I.

   The king had a great problem that was why he was searching for a specific woman to be his next queen. You see with the whole kingdom at his disposal, he searched for a girl with certain astrological attributes and most importantly an auspicious mark, because, unfortunately for him all his queens up till now gave birth to exclusively girls and all his concubines exclusively boys, making it difficult for him to marry all his daughters with proper dowry and he could not dispose of his bastards as he would if they were girls, all he had to do was send them to a different harem as dower. He badly needed an heir, he felt he was cursed enough not to have a son and decided to follow the prophecy of the enlightened to gain one as he feared his natural sons.

         I impatiently waited for vikranta and shylaja’s arrival; time was running out fast, if they were successful, I would escape this unscathed. It was getting late and the king came and sat on wedding platform while the prohit chanted the mantras, it soon would be my turn to go to the dais

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[i] Vethaal** - a spirit or in some instances said to be a vampire and always with an affiliation with Moringa tree.

[ii] suttee* - old hindu tradition of burning the widows in their husband's funeral pure.

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